1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information recording medium, an information recording apparatus, and an information reproduction apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to an information recording medium such as an optical disk, an information recording apparatus for recording information on the recording medium, and an information reproduction apparatus for reproducing information from the recording medium in a desired way, regardless of the recording order on the recording medium.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, there are broadly prevailed, as an information recording medium for recording information such as audio information, a Compact Disk, an audio tape and a Digital Audio Tape. Further, a Laser Disk, a Video Tape, a CD-V (Compact Disk-Video) and a Video Compact Disk are also broadly known as an information recording medium on which not only audio information but video information are recorded. Using these information recording media, Recorded information may be reproduced in various patterns (random access reproduction), irrespective of the recording order of the information pieces on the recording medium. For example, in the case of CD, many songs can be reproduced in a reversed order, and only a certain song can be repeatedly reproduced. Further, recorded information may be reproduced in accordance with time information (time code) recorded on the recording medium together with recorded information.
In a case of the conventional CD, as shown in FIG. 9, an access information area 101 is formed at inner circumferential side of the source information area 102 where source information such as audio information are recorded, so that the random access reproduction can be performed. In the access information area 101, access information used for reproduction are recorded for every songs. Further, the access information area 101 is recorded with start addresses 110, 111, . . . , N indicative of the addresses of the head portions of the respective songs recorded in the source information area 102, as shown in FIG. 9. Therefore, in the case of the conventional CD, the recorded song can be reproduced only by units of the songs. Nowadays, the information recording medium is used for karaoke playing, and in the karaoke use, there are desires to repeatedly reproduce only a certain portion of a song, such as a climax part, and to reproduce only certain portions of the plural songs, such as only the introduction part of many songs. However, since address information is recorded by the units of the songs in the conventional CD, the above demands can not be satisfied.